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We have, however, still to examine what is called the
affective phase of the Soul. This has, no doubt, been touched
upon above where we dealt with the passions in general as grouped
about the initiative phase of the Soul and the desiring faculty
in its effort to shape things to its choice: but more is
required; we must begin by forming a clear idea of what is meant
by this affective faculty of the Soul.
In general terms it means the centre about which we recognize the
affections to be grouped; and by affections we mean those states
upon which follow pleasure and pain.
Now among these affections we must distinguish. Some are pivoted
upon judgements; thus, a Man judging his death to be at hand may
feel fear; foreseeing some fortunate turn of events, he is happy:
the opinion lies in one sphere; the affection is stirred in
another. Sometimes the affections take the lead and automatically
bring in the notion which thus becomes present to the appropriate
faculty: but as we have explained, an act of opinion does not
introduce any change into the Soul or Mind: what happens is that
from the notion of some impending evil is produced the quite
separate thing, fear, and this fear, in turn, becomes known in
that part of the Mind which is said under such circumstances to
harbour fear.
But what is the action of this fear upon the Mind?
The general answer is that it sets up trouble and confusion
before an evil anticipated. It should, however, be quite clear
that the Soul or Mind is the seat of all imaginative
representation- both the higher representation known as opinion
or judgement and the lower representation which is not so much a
judgement as a vague notion unattended by discrimination,
something resembling the action by which, as is believed, the
"Nature" of common speech produces, unconsciously, the objects of
the partial sphere. It is equally certain that in all that
follows upon the mental act or state, the disturbance, confined
to the body, belongs to the sense-order; trembling, pallor,
inability to speak, have obviously nothing to do with the
spiritual portion of the being. The Soul, in fact, would have to
be described as corporeal if it were the seat of such symptoms:
besides, in that case the trouble would not even reach the body
since the only transmitting principle, oppressed by sensation,
jarred out of itself, would be inhibited.
None the less, there is an affective phase of the Soul or Mind
and this is not corporeal; it can be, only, some kind of
Ideal-form.
Now Matter is the one field of the desiring faculty, as of the
principles of nutrition growth and engendering, which are root
and spring to desire and to every other affection known to this
Ideal-form. No Ideal-form can be the victim of disturbance or be
in any way affected: it remains in tranquillity; only the Matter
associated with it can be affected by any state or experience
induced by the movement which its mere presence suffices to set
up. Thus the vegetal Principle induces vegetal life but it does
not, itself, pass through the processes of vegetation; it gives
growth but it does not grow; in no movement which it originates
is it moved with the motion it induces; it is in perfect repose,
or, at least, its movement, really its act, is utterly different
from what it causes elsewhere.
The nature of an Ideal-form is to be, of itself, an activity; it
operates by its mere presence: it is as if Melody itself plucked
the strings. The affective phase of the Soul or Mind will be the
operative cause of all affection; it originates the movement
either under the stimulus of some sense-presentment or
independently- and it is a question to be examined whether the
judgement leading to the movement operates from above or not- but
the affective phase itself remains unmoved like Melody dictating
music. The causes originating the movement may be likened to the
musician; what is moved is like the strings of his instrument,
and once more, the Melodic Principle itself is not affected, but
only the strings, though, however much the musician desired it,
he could not pluck the strings except under dictation from the
principle of Melody.
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